The present invention relates to refrigerators and, more particularly, to top mount refrigerators in which the freezer compartment is positioned above the fresh food compartment. Typically such refrigerators have only a single evaporator to chill the air for both the freezer and the fresh food compartments. The evaporator normally is positioned in a chamber formed at the rear of the freezer compartment. Cold air is fed either from the freezer compartment or from the evaporator chamber to the fresh food compartment and warm air is returned from the fresh food compartment directly to the evaporator chamber. Normally both the cold air feed to and the warm air return from the fresh food compartment are located in the upper rear portion of the fresh food compartment, often in a substantially side-by-side configuration. This has a number of short comings. First the cold air entering the fresh food compartment may mix with the relatively warm air returning to the evaporator. This reduces the effective cooling of the fresh food compartment. Also the upper front portion of the fresh food compartment tends to be out of the circulation path of the air in the fresh food compartment and may become warmer than desired.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved air flow system in a top mount refrigerator.
It is another object of this invention to provide such an improved system in which the cold air entering and the warm air returning from the fresh food compartment are effectively separated.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an improved system in which relatively warm air is returned to the evaporator from the upper front portion of the fresh food compartment.